BEING ABLE

"First Day of Spring",
watercolor,
Kay Smith

     I’m lucky I’m able to do so much. Truly, it’s an out-and-out miracle that I am able to bring in a new breath each moment, able to see so many daffodils standing in the sunshine this morning, 

able to tap out these words on a keyboard. Just now I am chewing and swallowing animal crackers, a quietly miraculous process that I’m somehow able to do. And able-ness is all around me here in Mystic. It’s in the trees so able to stand tall and sway stylishly year after year, in the birds able to effortlessly fly to wherever food can be found, in the sunshine somehow able to bring itself back to us each morning, and in my old but wise and clever hands that are able to easily carry cookies to my mouth again and again.

GLORY

"Barn at Dawn", oil,
by Heidi Malott

     Today we had a glorious spring morning in Mystic, and it made me actually feel a little glorious myself. Honestly, I felt something like splendor inside me, almost as magnificent as the sunshine spreading around the town. I’m in no way a celebrity, but I felt somehow famous this morning, the way the fresh wind is famous, the way the shining forsythias on our bushes are famous. There’s a distinction in being alive on a morning like today’s. There’s majesty in making an omelet, and greatness in going to the grocery store. Some of us praise the Lord, and I praise the proud, impressive mornings in this regal world of ours.

AN EVER-PRESENT POWER

     It sometimes surprises me that I can’t seem to ever find myself far from the presence of goodness. It’s always close by, like an ever-present power, like a gracious and supportive spirit. No matter how bad things seem to get, goodness is always nearby -- perhaps in the smile of someone at the grocery store, perhaps in a wave from a walker passing the house, perhaps simply in the quiet look of clouds coming across the trees. It seems omnipresent, this transcendent, universal force that stays beside us through the worst adversities. When sorrow closes in, goodness gets its light ready. When hatred breeds its short-lived bedlam, goodness, somewhere close by, prepares its gentle but far superior powers.

BIG-HEARTEDNESS

   I recall hearing it said that certain people had “big hearts”, meaning, I think, that they were overflowing with kindness and seemed to be able to share other people’s concerns and sorrows. It sometimes seems to me, though, that all of us actually have big hearts – infinitely big hearts -- except that we usually don’t realize it. It occasionally becomes clear to me that we all contain space enough inside us, in our inner spirit, to hold boundless amounts of kindness or sorrow. After all, our inner spirit –  our “other” heart, you might say – knows no boundaries, is not restricted by bones and flesh, but widens out as far as needed to hold whatever gloom or gladness life might send us.   It’s as if we have an endless sea inside us upon which all the ships of fear or joy,  happiness or disaster,  can comfortably ride.  Unfortunately, most of us -- including me -- usually see our inner lives as fairly small and constrained, able to hold only so much distress, and thus not able to be open to too much of other people’s pain. Every so often, however, I get a glimpse of the universal big-heartedness we all share –   the openness, the boundlessness, of our inner spirit. That’s when I know I can welcome, on my best days, the joys of life as well as the sorrows , including the sorrows of others. There’s room inside – inside all of us – for whatever feelings might flow our way.

CHARMING CLUELESSNESS

     When I was a boy, “search me” -- meaning “I have no clue” -- was a response I sometimes used when questioned about something, and I was thinking this morning that I could make it my personal slogan, since I honestly have few definite answers on almost any issue. I have occasionally enjoyed pretending I know the right answers, but the truth is, I could forage in my mind forever and still not be sure I’ve got the truth. All I usually find, in fact, is a formidable wilderness of answers, like wispy flakes moving by the millions through my mind. For me, life at 73 is almost always fun, and sometimes fantastic, but that doesn’t mean I have answers. Actually, I’ve pretty much given up trying to find answers, and instead, I guess I’m savoring the surprisingly charming world of my cluelessness. The sky above is immense and unsearchable and beautiful, and so, I now see, is the universe of answers. Instead of searching, I’m just appreciating.

EVERYDAY SHRINES

"Shrine in the Mist"
watercolor
by Shanti Marie

    If a shrine is a special spot set aside for attention and respect, a place somehow blessed and worthy of admiration, then it seems to me there are shrines wherever I go. Even at our favorite supermarket, I could pause just about anywhere to silently praise the orderliness of the shelves, the courteous attentiveness of the store’s workers, and especially – I must admit –the pleasing display of my favorite frozen yogurt flavors. I could simply pause, as I would at a shrine, and say to myself, with a smile, “It’s good for me to be here”. Just driving in the car also takes me past countless special places, as worthy of wonder and esteem as shrines in churches. I could pull to the roadside and stop just about anywhere to pay my respects – to a stand of springtime trees, to the surprising beauty of an old, beat-up bridge, to a group of workers waiting at the bus stop. These are not “holy” things in the religious sense; they are special and deserving of appreciation simply because they are there, standing in their uniqueness in the here and now. They are some of our everyday and everywhere shrines. If I had a hat on, I could take it off and bow to give the gift of honest respect.    

JUST SITTING

"Ethereal Brook,
watercolor by Gretchen Kelly

 We sometimes sit in the sunroom in a silent sort of way, just enjoying the pleasures of staying still for a few moments, and often it starts me thinking about other things that are sitting still. Stones, for instance, trillions of them across the earth, are sitting close to where they’ve been sitting for possibly eons, staying put just as we do in our sunroom, silent and steady. It’s as if stones see more good sense in waiting around than in rushing around. If they were alive, I’d say stones are wise enough to find peace precisely where they are. Delycia and I are not stones, but we do sometimes sit like them in the sunroom. It’s a good way to wait around for a feeling of appreciation and restfulness to come our way, and usually, within a few minutes, it does.  

     

NEVER BY MYSELF

"Solstice Sky", oil
by Carol Keene

      I sometimes like to think I’m doing something “by myself”, when the truth is that it’s an impossibility. I am  never truly by myself, never a totally solitary, separate person. I am an indivisible piece of a thoroughly unified universe, and as such I am inseparably linked with countless other persons and things. In a sense, thousands of “friends” are with me every second. All the people I’ve ever known, for instance, are still with me, since their influence, no matter how slight, is still inside me somewhere, still assisting me in making decisions. Also, the air around me is with me, joined to me, at all times, continuously flowing into my lungs in a helpful way. And some sort of sunlight is constantly with me, even on overcast days, lighting my way, lending a helping hand. The list of my “assistants” goes on and on: the cells in my body that work ceaselessly to support my endeavors; the blood that brings newness so I know what to do next; the heart that’s always right there with me, pumping with perfection like a partner. I might sometimes pretend that I’m “by myself”, but the truth is that untold “friends” are ever with me, making living a  rather cordial collaboration.                                 

THE FURIOUS SERENITY OF SPARROWS

"Rise and Shine"
watercolor
by Linda McCoy

     It’s fun to see so many sparrows swirling around our feeders these days, and doing it with a kind of furious serenity. They seem zestfully unruffled as they flutter and quiver and peck out some seeds and soar off again. There’s a sort of peaceful fury in their motions, a tumultuous calmness that always amazes me as I watch. They move their heads in jerky ways, but even this twitchy way of turning seems to be done in an unflustered manner, sort of the way leaves can shake in a storm with grace and smoothness. What I love most is the way a group of them can suddenly soar off to nearby bushes in what seems like a perfect flight pattern. They fly off quickly but beautifully, flashing away in what always looks like elegant orderliness. In my sometimes busy and bustling days, I’d love to see the shipshape neatness I see in the frantic dancing around the feeders. It wouldn’t be bad to live with the disciplined liveliness of sparrows.  

WATCHING THE SHOW

 I want to work on watching things more carefully – being a better watcher, you might say, and mostly, I want to watch the workings of my own life. It is, after all, a stirring show, this life I’m lucky to be living. Where it came from, who knows, but just now, at 73, it’s still performing with a fair amount of confidence and style on the stage set up for it by the universe. More and more, I want to seat myself in the audience and just watch this strange and occasionally startling show called “The Life of Ham”. For a few minutes, now and then, I want to watch the countless thoughts that dance through my mind, swirling their skirts and singing with finesse their hopeful or forlorn songs. I want to watch the flow of feelings inside me, the way joy sometimes joins with sadness and becomes wisdom, and the way all the feelings seem to flow out of a secret place and then slowly but surely disappear again. I want to watch my silly worries stomping around like they own the stage, and my fears falling over each other as they try to steal the show. It is, indeed, a daring and amusing performance, this life of mine, well worth the price of admission, which is just my willingness to sit still, lighten up, and watch in wonderment. 

NEW MOMENT, NEW FACE?

         Every so often, it becomes clear to me that each moment is a brand new one, never before seen or experienced in the whole history of the universe. Try as I may, I can’t imagine anything in any present moment that’s not completely crisp and unused. Moments may seem to contain odds and ends from the past, but those odds and ends are all experienced in the fresh and new moment called Now. If I say, staring at the mirror, that my face is surely not new, the statement itself is said in the clean and pristine present. The statement is about “oldness”, but the statement, as well as the thought behind it and the moment itself, shines with sheer newness. I can label my face, with all its furrows and grooves, as “old”, but since it’s staring back at me in a totally new and unspoiled moment, it must somehow share in that unblemished newness. As strange as it may sound, if the moment is new, must not the face also be new?

         I wonder . . . Could thinking this way – thinking about the absolute inescapability of newness – actually transform the appearance of a face? Could my well-wrinkled face, seen always with a spirit of newness, slowly seem somewhat newer, day by day?

A DAY ABOUT CLOUDS

    Early this morning, I decided to make this day a day about clouds. The sky was streaked with clouds as we drove to the gym, so I suppose that might have been why I chose to work hard today to see what’s special about clouds. Mostly, I decided to simply try to see the clouds more clearly, to consider them carefully, to maybe sit outside and just stare at these surprising shapes in the sky. After all, they’re always inconstant and capricious, slowly shifting and adjusting as they pass across us, restyling their colors in subtle ways, so perhaps I should pause occasionally to make a serious study of them. Perhaps I should sometimes stop doing, doing, doing, and simply sit and let the stately loveliness of clouds thoroughly impress me for a minute or two on this day that will, for me, be all about clouds.  

INSTASPONTANEITY

    I’m fairly sure there’s no such word as instaspontaneity” so I’m going to invent it, because it’s what I see all around me. At any given moment, a great multitude of things are happening instantly and concurrently, sort of like limitless lightning streaks flashing each second. At this particular moment, as I type beside a window, there are trees twisting in the wind, squirrels scooting across the grass, sparrows shaking at the feeders, hearts of wrens and humans holding steady, clouds cruising easily, countless lives being lived with steadiness across the universe – and all of this is instantaneous and synchronized, like an on-the–spot, systematized dance. What’s strange is that none of us can avoid being part of this dance. It’s what life is. Despite being usually unaware of it, I live a totally synchronized, “instaspontaenous” life, flowing ceaselessly and swiftly with all things, from sparrows to spinning planets, in a sudden and well-balanced way.

“THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING”

      I am not a regular churchgoer, nor do I consider myself strictly a Christian, but during these days leading up to the celebration of Easter I am always struck by what Jesus said in forgiving his enemies. He said he forgave them because “they don’t know what they are doing”, and when I read those words, I usually say to myself, “Yup, and neither do I.” I do hundreds of things each day, from walking around the house and yard to setting words into sentences on this computer screen, and, honestly, I usually haven’t a clue as to exactly what I’m doing. Life, to me, becomes more of a mystery with each passing day, and I often feel fairly befuddled by what’s happening. When I walk, for instance, what exactly are my muscles and bones and brain doing that enables me to move so efficiently? We use the word “walking” to conveniently label the activity, but that doesn’t begin to describe the inconceivable complexity of it. And when I write, do I honestly have any clear idea what I’m doing? I like to pretend that I do, but in truth, the words seem to settle themselves across the screen in their own strange ways, with little help from me. The sentences sometimes seem clear, but I’m not at all sure how it happens. Actually, I guess something similar could be said about most of my life. I often feel like I’m living in the midst of a vast and generous (though not always happy) mystery, something like an endless rising of rainbows, or a continuous string of surprising sunsets. I could pause in amazement almost every moment of every day. Do I know what I’m doing, any more than the enemies of Jesus did? Usually not a bit. I just try to keep up with the spectacular show, and hope I’m no one’s enemy.

RACING SLOWLY, AND WITH PATIENCE

        Like most of us, I still do a fair share of racing around in these retirement days, but I guess I’m racing around more slowly and patiently, more willing, you might say, to good naturedly let the race run itself and just take pleasure in participating in it. On a given day, I’m going here and there and back and forth, checking off my list of to-do’s and to-get’s, but now I’m running a gentler, more warmhearted race. You might say I’m slowly racing from task to task, and with more composure, perhaps the way sparrows seem to collect their seeds at the feeder with both quickness and coolness. I’ve noticed that the wind sometimes blows on our street that way, too – rushing among the houses, yes, but in a somehow stress-free way, doing its to-do’s with both enthusiasm and restfulness. As a senior, I’m seeing the benefits in that kind of racing around. With my white beard and bald head, I’m breaking new records for getting things done with a cozy and easy kind of speed.